Can you tell what it is yet? [1984 Version]

Factoring this trusty little quote from the MoD in to the equation:

The Middle Class Proletariat

The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.

Who would ever suspect that the story behind a nice gentle headline such as NUS starts campaign to oust leading Lib Dems might contain a confirmation of the State's virtually tacit declaration of war on anyone with half a conscience? Probably not many - but it does.

As police face continued criticism for failing to control the march, the Observer has learned that defence firms are working closely with UK armed forces and contemplating a "militarisation" strategy to counter the threat of civil disorder.

The trade group representing the military and security industry says firms are in negotiation with senior officers over possible orders for armoured vehicles, body scanners and better surveillance equipment.

The move coincides with government-backed attempts to introduce the use of unmanned spy drones throughout UK airspace, facilitating an expansion of covert surveillance that could provide intelligence on future demonstrations.

Derek Marshall, of the trade body Aerospace, Defence and Security (ADS), said that such drones could eventually replace police helicopters.

He added that military manufacturers had discussed police procurement policies with the government, as forces look to counter an identified threat of civil disobedience from political extremists.

Meanwhile police sources say they have detected an increase in the criminal intentions of political extremists and are monitoring "extreme leftwing activity" in light of last week's student protest.

The office of the National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism (NCDE) said it was feeding information to Scotland Yard's National Public Order Intelligence Unit, which holds a database of protest groups. NCDE, which in turn works closely with the Confidential Intelligence Unit that monitors political groups throughout the UK, said it had already recorded a rise in politically motivated disorder.

- The Guardian

Delightful to learn that these private military corporations have identified the general public as their new targets, an added bonus that State officials think so too. More wonderful still to learn of the rapidity with which "senior officers", such as the lovely fellows of the Association of Chief Police Officers, have tendered a sympathetic ear or two.

The police even shut down a web site -- which sort of backfired somewhat, what with the Internet being the way it is for now -- but it's very important everyone remembers that censorship only takes place in China or Iran, and probably Somalia too. That'd never happen here.

Not long ago, you'd have been a 'conspiracy theorist' if you thought there was the remotest possibility of the State censoring web sites or arming itself in earnest against the people that happen to live under its jurisdication.

It might be fascism, but is it still a 'conspiracy theory'?

9/11, 7/7, conspiracy theories, power surges & coups

Three weeks ago:

Three posts of a kind, all about the popularly propagated myth that cannabis consumption is responsible for increased levels of psychosis, all published right here on Reason.... just weeks before the 2005 coup d'etat "power surge" changed everything.....

The phrase coup d'etat, complete with its deliberate conflation with the term "power surge", carried a link to an article by Joseph Raso on his Resources for Political Change web site, Understanding the September 11, 2001 Attacks as a Coup D'Etat. Since then, Raso's article, which has been online since 2006, appears to have been removed along with the rest of his web site. At the time of writing the site is is still offline.

The disappeared article outlines a useful and important framework from within which the events of 11th September 2001 can be seen not just as the made for TV terrorist spectacular that they were, but instead as a made for TV terrorist spectacular with deliberate political aims, intents and purposes, albeit ones completely contrary to those offered in the official narrative. Raso makes the case that history is beset with such politically charged spectaculars for which alternative narratives have been, and still are, dismissed by some as "malicious lies" and "outrageous conspiracy theories". Many of these "conspiracy theories" have since been proven to be, albeit some time after the events to which they refer, "conspiracy fact" but this has never prevented purveyors of official doctrine from the endlessly fast and loose use of the throwaway terms "conspiracy theory" or "conspiracy theorist" as they attempt to call a halt to critical thinking and critical thinkers. The irony of the anti-intellectualism practiced by those who would hold themselves to be intellectuals is lost on no-one, yet the anti-thinking endeavour to defend their staunchly held positions of weakness with a renewed sense of desperation and transparency.

Others are somewhat wiser and more honest with their analysis. The research of Professor David MacGregor includes studies in the Hegelian-Marxist political economy of concrete evil, inaugurated in an article The Deep Politics of 911: Political Economy of Concrete Evil. MacGregor has also written an article for J7: The July 7th Truth Campaign, July 7th as Machiavellian State Terror? in which he posits the notion that the events of July 7th may fall into the category of what he terms "Machiavellian state terror, spectacular violence perpetrated against the state by elements of the state itself". The theory was born in another of MacGregor's articles on the subject of 9/11, September 11 as Machiavellian State Terror, in which he highlights the importance of 'oppositional theorizing: questioning government and looking for connections between events', activities which he suggests 'are critical features of what it means to be vitally active in the political universe'.

At around 9:17 on 7th July 2005 rolling TV news began to break stories of explosions on the London Underground. It wasn't long before the media were reporting that the explosions on underground trains were the result of "power surges".

In most cases the coup is undertaken to displace one set of rulers, typically the civilian leadership, and establish the power of an alternative group, which is often, but not necessarily, the military. What distinguishes a coup from revolutions is that they are typically carried by relatively small groups and do not involve mass political action. The second key difference is that while those who carry out the coup are seeking to change the government or ruling group, they are not usually trying to change the regime or bring about broader social change. [answers.com]

Removing the initially reported cause of the underground explosions on 7/7 from its implied electrical context, the term "power surge" well describes a method by which an attempt could be made to "establish the power of an alternative group". An examination of key socio-political events since 7/7 in the U.K, and since 9/11 in the U.S., easily reveals many crucial changes in political and social life where new and more intrusive, paternalistic, fascistic methods of operation have been adopted. Worse, these policies and practices have been seamlessly integrated into the operation of State machinery with barely a challenge from within the machine. On the odd occasion where challenges have been made from inside the establishment, the State has elected to ride roughshod over them and continue unchecked in the business of establishing all the politics and technologies of political control that anyone with dictatorial designs might need, complete with a Weimar Republic economy and modern day Reichstag Fire.

To date, where opposition to the actions of the State have materialised from outside the establishment, it has largely confined itself to relatively small, single-issue groupings, too limited in time, resources and publicity to embark on wider political and social campaigns. There are some exceptions, for example the Stop The War Coalition, who have time, reach, resources and the potential to affect change through their broad-based membership instead of merely organising the occasional feel-good march. Yet this hasn't happened and there may be other reasons for this lack of progress such as a lack of decent leadership, an absence of the desire to affect real political change, or other less obvious and slightly more nefarious attributes that prevent them from advancing a more all encompassing political agenda.

This paradigm is changing though, particularly with regard to the nebulous but ever growing 9/11 Truth movement whose reach seems to include most of the world. As general levels of political awareness and distrust of the establishment grow in tandem with each other, new "anti-terror" legislation in both the U.S. and the U.K. is specifically designed to ensure the loudly stated objectives of new laws mask the way in which just about any activity at all, particularly any activity that is in any way political or has political objectives, can now be prosecuted as the common offense of "terrorism", in advance of there being any actual terrorism and irrespective of the "terrorists" possessing the means, methods and motives to carry out acts of terror, much less the sustained campaigns of terror only achievable by States. Charity workers are now "terrorist fundraisers", solidarity workers are now "terrorist sympathisers" and so too is anyone campaigning for any sort of meaningful justice for those deemed by word alone to be "terrorists".

In the days of The Troubles it was just the same. By some sheer coincidence of unimaginable proportions, many of the very same old boys who happened to play key roles in running the show in Northern Ireland on behalf of the British government just happen to be in the positions of power to run a similar show on mainland Britain.

With that as an introduction, and because it's a concise article that deserves to be read and espouses something worth thinking about, here's a copy Joseph Raso's Understanding the September 11, 2001 Attacks as a Coup D'Etat.

April 2006
Understanding the September 11, 2001 Attacks as a Coup D'Etat
by Joseph Raso

"The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad."

-- James Madison

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the world witnessed a coup d'etat unfold in the United States of America. Although the U.S. government and compliant media have presented 9/11 as a surprise assault perpetrated by Islamic militants acting in a conspiracy under the direction of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon should be viewed very differently given the results of the investigations conducted by many researchers which indicate U.S. government complicity. Analyzing 9/11 as a coup is appropriate whether government officials possessed foreknowledge and allowed these atrocities to occur, or if, as the available evidence suggests, 9/11 was a covert operation akin to Operation Northwoods, a false-flag attack orchestrated by elements within and associated with the U.S. state.(1) In terms of loss of life, deception, and global implications, it would be accurate to characterize it as the most audacious coup in history.

Coups: North and South

A coup is best defined as a sudden extraconstitutional seizure of power, often violent in nature, by individuals within the state apparatus. It is commonly identified with the classic military intervention, but coups may assume other forms. They are associated with politics in the 'Third World'/global South, where these events have typically occurred without pretense. One of the most infamous cases in the South was the coup in Chile, supported by the Nixon administration and facilitated by a CIA campaign, on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 1973.(2) It resulted in seventeen years of military rule, the murder of more than 3,000 Chileans and some foreigners by the Pinochet regime, and countless victims of torture in a country previously respected for its history of constitutional democracy.(3)

In the West/global North, dramatic extraconstitutional seizures of power also occur, albeit less frequently. Certainly the most significant coup in the North during the Cold War era was perpetrated by the U.S. 'national security state' on November 22, 1963. It was in the wake of the Dallas coup that 'conspiracy theory' became a term of ridicule, which, although profoundly ahistorical and intellectually bankrupt, managed to achieve the objective of diverting attention from the truth about state responsibility for the murder of President Kennedy.(4) His death, as intended, led to a policy shift favourable to the interests of the 'military-industrial complex' of which President Eisenhower had famously warned the country in his farewell address less than three years earlier. In fact, all coups in the North are policy coups, designed to force a change in foreign and/or domestic policies, which has not always been the case with coups in the South. Evidence in the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 follows this pattern and strongly suggests the involvement of a clandestine NATO network linked to terrorism.(5)

9/11: Global Coup

9/11 was both a domestic and international coup. When a coup occurs in the world's hegemonic power, it will necessarily have vast implications on a global level. The events of 9/11 can be viewed as a violent takeover by neoconservative fascist elements in the 'national security' apparatus of the state, whose extremist agenda would not have been viable without 9/11. The neocon camp includes individuals who have figured prominently in the Bush regime: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis Libby, Elliott Abrams, and others. Their worldview is identified with Leo Strauss, the founder of the neoconservative school and a former professor at the University of Chicago who influenced a generation of political leaders. At the core of the neocon ideology is contempt for democracy and an emphasis on the desirability of deception, conflict, and perpetual war. From this perspective, 9/11 was ideal to initiate the 'clash of civilizations' popularized by Samuel Huntington, a Harvard academic whose work has considerable influence in foreign policymaking circles.(6)

The neocon program for global domination was delineated in publications of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neocon think tank founded in 1997 and comprised of the key administration officials noted earlier as well as other government advisors. In respect to 9/11, the document entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century" (September 2000) deserves scrutiny. In this blueprint for U.S. imperialism in the twenty-first century, PNAC members noted that their plan would demand global military force and thus a substantial increase in military spending, but "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event-like a new Pearl Harbor."(7) A year later, 9/11 conveniently provided this requisite 'new Pearl Harbor' pretext for the neocon architects' imperial project.

However, not all of the beneficiaries of the 9/11 coup are located within the borders of the United States. A thoughtful analysis has recently been offered by General Leonid Ivashov, Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces at the time of 9/11: "We have to look for the reasons of the attacks in the coincidence of interests of the big capital at global and transnational levels, in the circles that were not satisfied with the rhythm of the globalization process or its direction." In this sense, 9/11 served the economic interests of a transnational elite. He contends: "This means that terrorism is not something independent of world politics but simply an instrument, a means to install a unipolar world with a sole world headquarters, a pretext to erase national borders and to establish the rule of a new world elite."(8)

Machiavelli and Democratic Appearances

Undoubtedly, 9/11 was also a coup in a domestic context. The post-9/11 Patriot Act (like similar 'anti-terror' legislation in other countries) has severely undermined civil liberties while the authoritarian approach of the Bush administration, in combination with the astonishing weakness/complicity of Democrats, have allowed for the concentration of virtually unrestricted power in the executive branch, the gradual disappearance of 'checks and balances' and the dismantling of the constitution.

The writings of Florentine political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli provide a useful guide for comprehending the neocon ruling strategy. Machiavelli explained the importance of deceiving the public in undertaking major political change. In Discourses on Livy, he argued that one "must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones."(9) In their Machiavellian rule, the neocons have hollowed out democratic institutions of substance while retaining the structures, thus preserving the appearance of a functioning liberal democracy.

Consequences

The consequences of this grand coup extend far beyond the loss of nearly 3,000 lives that day, health problems in New York for many thousands more, and much greater loss of life in subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.(10) In fact, it is difficult to exaggerate the impact of 9/11 on the world over the past several years: the persecution and dangerous dehumanization of Muslims, widespread use of torture, advanced erosion of civil liberties, brazen violation of international law, establishment of the doctrine of unilateral preventive war, the potential for nuclear conflict, and the construction of a new world order which poses the threat of global fascism.(11) All of these appalling developments are the product of 9/11. One must also consider the deterioration in the political climate and intellectual discourse.

Meanwhile, the fraudulent 'global war on terror' has deprived vital global issues of critical focus and funding. Environmental degradation, the AIDS pandemic, extreme poverty, and the massive debt burden of the South are overshadowed in the post-9/11 world. U.S. domestic concerns in health care, education, social decay, and a host of other issues are also neglected in favour of astronomical military spending. The atrocious war in Iraq, predicated on lies that were transparent prior to the invasion, only increases the country's deep indebtedness and further jeopardizes the long-term prospects of the U.S. economy.

Conclusion

9/11 was a coup against humanity. Exposing it is essential to prevent another 9/11-type event and more wars for oil and empire, which have the potential to culminate in a world war. There exists no alternative to dismantling this coup in order to steer the world away from its disastrous course. The future of everyone on this planet depends on it and we cannot afford to fail in this historic task. Consider the title of a book on public denial over the unpleasant truth of the Kennedy assassination, written by psychiatrist E. Martin Schotz: History Will Not Absolve Us.

NOTES (updated)

(1) a) David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott (eds). 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (Volume I). Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2006.

b) Peter Dale Scott. The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.

c) David Ray Griffin. Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2007.

d) David Ray Griffin. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2005.

e) Paul Zarembka (ed). The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 (Research in Political Economy, Volume 23). Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006.

f) Barrie Zwicker. Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2006.

g) Michel Chossudovsky. America's "War on Terrorism." Pincourt, PQ: Global Research, 2005.

h) Webster G. Tarpley. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2005.

i) Michael C. Ruppert. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2004.

j) Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism. Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2005.

k) Steven E. Jones. "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?" Journal of 9/11 Studies (September 2006/Volume 3). [PDF]

l) Joseph P. Firmage. "Intersecting Facts and Theories on 9/11." Journal of 9/11 Studies (August 2006/Volume 2). [PDF]

m) Global Outlook: The Magazine of 9/11 Truth

n) Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice

(2) National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 8, "Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military Coup, September 11, 1973"

(3) Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation

(4) a) Joan Mellen. A Farewell to Justice: Jim Garrison, JFK's Assassination, and the Case That Should Have Changed History. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books Inc., 2005.

b) Vincent J. Salandria. False Mystery: Essays on the Assassination of JFK. Louisville, CO: Square Deal Press, 2004.

c) E. Martin Schotz. History Will Not Absolve Us: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy. Brookline, MA: Kurtz, Ulmer & Delucia, 1996.

d) Peter Dale Scott. Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

e) Alan J. Weberman and Michael Canfield. Coup D'Etat in America: The CIA and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. San Francisco: Quick Trading Company, 1992.

(5) a) Philip P. Willan. Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in Italy. New York: Authors Choice Press, 2002.

b) Daniele Ganser. NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. London: Frank Cass, 2005.

c) Arthur E. Rowse. "Gladio: The Secret U.S. War to Subvert Italian Democracy." Covert Action Quarterly (No. 49: Summer 1994).

(6) Samuel P. Huntington. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

(7) Project for the New American Century, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century" (September 2000)

(8) Leonid Ivashov, "International terrorism does not exist"

(9) Niccolo Machiavelli. Discourses on Livy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

(10) Sabrina Tavernise and Donald G. McNeil Jr. "Iraqi dead may total 600,000, study says." International Herald Tribune (11 October 2006).

(11) Richard Falk, "Will the Empire be Fascist?"

N.B. This article does not preclude other perspectives on 9/11 e.g. viewing it as a psychological operation (psyop) against the general population.

Propaganda Coups & PsyOps #101 - The BNP Member List

Quick as a flash, or perhaps even quicker, a complete list of British National Party members -- the useful far-right, Neo-Nazi idiots who insist on waging a race war because, unlike racist bigotry, revolutionary class war is outside the bounds of acceptable mainstream political activity -- appeared on the Internet. And then promptly disappeared.

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at bnpmemberslist.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

Disappeared, momentarily, before reappearing as a Swedish registered and hosted web site, a text file, a spreadsheet and even an SQL database file, rapidly made searchable by postcode - complete with links to Googlemaps of member locations. There's also Cryptome, LOLGRIFFIN - Nazis. I hate those guys, BNP Near Me, a BNP heat-map, the Guardian going one better with an Interactive Far Right Map of Britain, and the Daily Mash doing what it does best. All this and the requisite levels of cross-media publicity in the blog world, the dead trees, and on the telescreen. The published list apparently includes serving policemen (surprise!), armed forces personnel (surprise!), seven journalists (surprise!), prison officers (surprise!), vicars and, in some cases, entire families! It also features an extra seven people not on the original list.

Little talk of goose-sauce also being good for the gander. Redwatch, paid back in own-goal spades.

Rumour has it that the party's former treasurer, John Walker, might be responsible for the leak. These suspicions are given further weight by the comments of BNP leader, Nick Griffin, as reported in The Times:

"We are pretty sure (we know who leaked it). We had a problem with a very senior former employee who left last year. He was one of the hard-liners I inherited from my predecessor, he didn't like the direction the party was going in, thought it was too moderate, so he broke away taking the list with him."

Given that it is almost the end of the year referred to by Gregorian calendars as 2008, a "senior former employee who left last year" would have had to have left at least 11 months ago. Potentially they may have left any time between 11 and 23 months ago. In the case of Walker, who is also known for leading fuel protests, he left the BNP in August 2007 after some fisticuffs at the BNP's annual Red, White and Blue Farcestival. This is where Griffin's claim gets interesting because, according to the Lancaster Unite Against Fascism blog, "additions to the list are as recent as September of this year".

This is not to convict or absolve John Walker of having leaked the list -- "innocent until proven guilty" still applies to whitey -- but instead to suggest that if he was indeed responsible for the leak, it would have had to have been done with some assistance from inside the existing BNP structure to account for the "as recent as September of this year" additions.

Nick Griffin discusses curtains

In light of this timely release of the BNP membership list, Conspiraloons who recall Sinn Féin party administrator Denis Donaldson might further ponder the potential level of State involvement in / infiltration of the BNP, in line with the State's general levels of involvement in and infiltration of practically any organisations with a vaguely political agenda.

You can almost see how this story might play out in the coming weeks. The list of BNP members went online for ten minutes, which was just long enough for a bunch of 'radicals' and 'extremists' to get hold of it, and soon a few hateful and hate-filled white men will turn up in the 'news' claiming to have been persecuted / beaten up / attacked by the 'radicals' and 'extremists' of the wrong sort, those that might not be quite so supportive of fascism as BNP members. A phone call already allegedly received by one member, as reported by Lancaster UAF, is the first trickle in what has the potential to become a mass media tsunami, complete with fighting in the streets. Maybe even a spectacular on 7/7/2001 7/7/2005 7/7/2009.

British Oppression, the reprise?

--
Meanwhile, in news worth knowing:

One of Britain's most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a "world vigilante".
....
Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. "The current ministerial code," he added "binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to 'comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations'."
....
Addressing the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last night, Bingham said: "If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the security council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law.

"For the effect of acting unilaterally was to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed: the prohibition of force (save in self-defence, or perhaps, to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe) unless formally authorised by the nations of the world empowered to make collective decisions in the security council ..."